Chord symbols
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A chord symbol is an abbreviated way of representing a musical chord and its harmony.
MuseScore Studio supports the following notations:
Chord symbols: alphabetical chord name plus chord quality. e.g. 'Am'
Roman numeral analysis (RNA): Roman numeral plus chord quality. e.g. 'vi'
Nashville number system (NNS): Arabic numeral plus chord quality. e.g. '6m'.
Chord symbols are mostly entered as plain text. As soon as you finish inputting or editing a chord (by moving to another chord, or by leaving edit mode), the characters are parsed and, as long as MuseScore Studio can understand the sequence, will be formatted correctly.
MuseScore uses this terminology for the parts of a chord symbol:
Press Ctrl+K (Mac: Cmd+K); the cursor is now positioned above the staff ready for input
Type the chord symbol using this syntax:
root note: any letter a to g (case is not important)
accidentals: # (sharp), b (flat), x or ## (double sharp), bb (double flat)
To leave the input mode, press Esc or click on an empty place in the score.
To enter an explicit natural after the root note, use the keyboard shortcut Ctrl+Shift+H (Mac:Cmd+Shift+H). Note that this will not play back, and the playback will be reduced to just the chord's root note.
To enter a space character within a chord symbol, use Ctrl+Space (Mac: Alt+Space).
MuseScore understands most of the standard abbreviations used in chord symbols, and will play them back accordingly. They can be input as follows:
major: M, Ma, Maj, ma, maj, t (produces Δ; on Mac, ˆ also works)
minor: m, mi, min, -
augmented: aug, +
The following abbreviations are also accepted:
extensions and modifiers, for example b9 or #5, sus, alt, and no3
inversions and slash chords, for example C7/E
Finally, you can type parentheses, which can enclose any part of a chord symbol (or the whole thing), and commas.
The following is a summary of keyboard shortcuts used to move the cursor in chord symbol entry mode:
Move cursor to next note, rest, or beat
Space
Space
Move cursor to next beat
;
;
Move cursor to previous note, rest, or beat
Shift+Space
(none)
Move cursor to previous beat
:
:
Move cursor to next measure
Ctrl+Right
Cmd+Right
Move cursor to previous measure
Ctrl+Left
Cmd+Left
Ctrl+1-9
Cmd+1-9
Exit chord symbol entry
Esc
Esc
Select a start note
Type the RNA symbols for the chord just like normal text, as follows:
major chord: upper case roman numerals (I, II, III, IV, etc.)
minor chord: lower case roman numerals (i, ii, iii, iv, etc.)
diminished chord: o (lower case)
half-diminished chord: 0
augmented chord: +
chord inversions: enter up to 3 single-digit numbers, top note first
accidentals: # (sharp), b (flat) or h (natural)
To leave the input mode, press Esc or click on an empty place in the score.
While inputting, you can prevent any character from being interpreted by prefixing it with \ (backslash). This could be used, for example, to add the literal letters 'b' or 'h', or to input a non-superscripted number, etc.
Inversions can be indicated using the letters a, b, c, d by simply typing those letters.
Type this:
To produce this:
The Nashville Number System (NNS), is a shorthand method of representing chords by their scale degrees rather than chord letters. This allows an accompaniment to be played in any key from the same chord chart.
To start entering Nashville notation:
Select a start note
From the menu, select Add -> Text -> Nashville number.
Just as with standard chord symbols, you can type Nashville notation normally and MuseScore will do its best to recognize and format the symbols appropriately.
To disable or re-enable playback of chord symbols entirely:
Click the cog at the right of the playback controls
In the menu, select Play chord symbols to remove or re-add the tick.
To disable or re-enable playback of a specific chord symbol:
Select the chord symbol
Go to the Properties panel
In the General selection, check or uncheck the Play box.
The global style options for chord symbols are found in Format -> Style -> Chord symbols. Not every setting is applicable to every type of chord symbol notation; where not relevant, they will have no effect. (For example: switching to Jazz style will affect chord symbols and NNS, but not RNA.)
Each type of chord symbol notation does have its own default text style, which can be configured in Format -> Style -> Text styles (Chord symbol, Roman numeral analysis, Nashville number).
This determines how chord symbols are rendered. It affects all chord symbols in the score and cannot be overridden for a specific item.
Standard: the default, where chords are rendered using the standard text font, with no additional formatting
Jazz: the MuseJazz font is used for a handwritten look, with distinctive superscript and other special characteristics
Custom: with this option you can customize the appearance of chord symbols by means of a chord symbols style file (in XML format, with extension .xml)
You can customise the scale for extensions and modifiers via Extension/Modifier scaling (as a proportion of the overall chord symbol size), and their vertical position via Extension/Modifier vertical offset (expressed in spaces).
Here are some example of how chords are rendered with different settings:
The following options are available under Spelling:
Standard: A, Bâ™, B, C, C♯... (this is the default)
German: A, Bâ™, H, C, C♯...
Full German: A, B, H, C, Cis...
Solfeggio: Do, Do♯, Reâ™, Re...
French: Do, Do♯, Réâ™, Ré...
If Automatic capitalization is on (which it is by default), MuseScore will capitalize all the root notes of chords, regardless of whether they are entered in upper or lower case. You can disable this behaviour entirely by unchecking the box, in which case the capitalization will be left as you type it, or you can customise its behaviour via the options below:
Lower case minor chords: minor chords will be made lower-case (major chords will still be capitalized)
Lower case bass notes: bass notes will be made lower-case
All caps note names: all letters in note names, not just the initial letter, will be capitalized (e.g. DO, RE, MI)
Distance to fretboard diagram: the distance between a chord symbol and a fretboard diagram below it
Minimum chord spacing: the minimum horizontal distance between two chord symbols
Maximum barline distance: (this used to control the distance between the last chord symbol in a measure and the following barline, but is now obsolete)
Maximum shift above/below: the maximum distance a chord symbol can be moved up or down to align it with the preceding one on the system. If these are set to 0, the symbols will not align; to force all chord systems to align across the system, set this to a high value.
Interpretation
Literal
Jazz: adds color tones (e.g. the major 9th) but may also omit certain notes - this depends both on the chord itself and its context, the next chord in particular
Voicing
Automatic
Root only: just the bass note
Close: keeps the notes within the span of an octave
Drop two: lowers the second-highest note by one octave
Six note
Four note: 3rd, 5th, 7th and 9th intervals
Three note
Duration
Until next chord symbol
Until end of measure
Chord/rest duration: following the duration of the chord or rest to which the symbol is attached, only
Regarding voicing, note that the triangle symbol (Δ) in MuseScore Studio creates a major triad only.
MuseScore can create an extra bracketed chord symbol next to the main one for when playing with a capo; the bracketed symbol, when played using a capo at that position, sounds identical to the unbracketed one. (This feature only applies to chord symbols, not Nashville numbers or Roman numeral analysis.)
To enable this feature, set Capo fret position to a value above 0.
In the Properties panel, in the Chord symbol section, you can change the playback settings for the currently selected chord(s), which will override the score-wide settings.
In the Text section you can override properties for the text formatting of the symbol, as for all other text items. (Note that the Font property will be ignored when the Jazz rendering style is used.)
To realize a selection of chord symbols:
Make a selection of chord symbols
Right-click on any chord in the selection
Click Realize chord symbols
In the Realize chord symbols dialog, if you wish to override the default options for the selection, check Override with custom options and configure the options below as necessary
Click OK.
To identify harmony or chord, use a plugin such as:
Chord symbols style files:
Select a start note, , or rest
for other symbols, extensions and modifiers, see , below
To move the cursor forward to the next beat, note or rest (whichever comes first), press Space. For other ways to move the cursor, see
When chord symbols are formatted, any root note typed in lower case will become capitalized (for alternative options, see ) and any characters entered for accidentals are automatically converted into the appropriate music symbols. Do not directly input (or copy and paste) unicode characters such as U+266F (sharp sign, ♯), or U+266D (flat sign, â™), as MuseScore will not render them correctly in chord notation.
diminished: dim, o (renders as ° if using the ; as o, the Greek omicron, otherwise)
half-diminished: 0 (renders as ø if using the ; as 0 otherwise), or you can use abbreviations such as mi7b5 etc. Note: to get Dø, type D0, not Dm70 or Dm0
Move cursor by number
Chord symbols are text items. Double-click on a chord symbol to enter edit mode (see ). While editing, the chord symbol will be shown using text that follows the syntax described above. When you leave edit mode, it will again be converted to the correct formatting.
MuseScore Studio uses a specialist font () to provide the correct formatting for RNA. Unlike with chord symbols, when entering RNA using the syntax described below, the correct symbols and formatting will be shown with each keystroke.
From the menu, select Add -> Text -> Roman numeral analysis (if you use this feature often, consider setting up a keyboard shortcut to do the same thing in )
To move the cursor, the commands are the same as for chord symbols: see
For some more complex syntax, see the following .
Inversion notation using vertically aligned Arabic numerals with accidentals such as 6#3 (i.e. an altered chord) is not supported. As a workaround: create text instead, or create separate text objects and manually nudge them into position.
The same are used as for the other chord symbol types.
They can be overridden for any specific chord symbol via the panel.
These options also affect how chords will be realized into notation; see .
(See also the chapter.)
When switching Concert pitch on or off, chord symbols on transposing instruments will adjust automatically. When concert pitch is off and chord symbols are copy-pasted between transposing and non-transposing instruments, they will be transposed accordingly. Note, however, that chords associated with are not transposed automatically.
The (Tools -> Transpose) will transpose all selected chord symbols, though not Nashville numbers or Roman numeral analysis. To prevent chord symbols from being transposed, uncheck the Transpose chord symbols box in the dialog.
MuseScore allows you to generate notes from selected chord symbols and Nashville numbers (but not Roman numeral analysis) . The result will depend on the , described above.
To change chord quality after , use a plugin such as:
for music that features harmonic chromaticism heavily, as the RNA created has jazz influence.
for music that features stable tonality, as conventional RNA are created.
shared by RunasSudo
workaround by MarcSabatella
